‘Assume the George Michael position, doctor told patients’

AN NHS surgeon told patients to ‘assume the George Michael position’ whenever he carried out intimate bowel examinations, a medical tribunal heard yesterday.

Dr Serban Gheorghiu, 59, repeatedly referred to the late singer’s sexuality as he asked patients to get on all fours for colonoscopies, it was claimed.

The married father of two is accused of causing ‘distress’ to patients and staff by using foul language and indulging in inappropriate behaviour, including ‘pressing’ himself against a nurse.

The incidents between October 2015 and August 2017 came five years after Gheorghiu, originally from Romania, joined Scarborough General Hospital in North Yorkshire as a colorectal surgeon.

They allegedly included referring to fellow doctors as ‘f****** b*******’ and the management as ‘s***’.

Peter Atherton, a lawyer for the General Medical Council, told the fitness to practise hearing in Manchester that complaints were made against the surgeon by a colleague named only as Nurse A who worked with him in the endoscopy unit.

‘She described feeling shocked by what appeared to be Dr Gheorghiu’s unprofessional attitude and behaviours, by his sexual innuendos and inappropriate language,’ Mr Atherton said.

‘She was present on many occasions when he spoke inappropriately towards colleagues or in the presence of patients.’

The Medical Practitioners Trioccasion bunal Service heard that the nurse challenged Gheorghiu after he told a patient they would get some ‘s***’ NHS coffee after a procedure but ‘ he ignored her, continuing his behaviour like it was funny’.

Mr Atherton said: ‘In December 2016 she heard Dr Gheorghiu speaking with another nurse about taking him to a brothel. She heard him saying things like how he would show him how to have a good time and making offensive comments ... On one he held a nurse from behind and she felt him pressing against her. She felt shocked and vulnerable and quickly moved away.’

Mr Atherton said Nurse A also heard Gheorghiu asking a colleague if she ‘had rough sex last night’ and claimed he used ‘the “F word” a lot talking about staff in another hospital’.

Nurse A, who had been working at the hospital for six weeks before seeking advice about Gheorghiu, said: ‘I didn’t find it funny. He was using sexual innuendos and abusive language in front of patients.

‘I have never made any other complaint than this. I found his behaviour to be unprofessional. The culture at that time was just accepting of how he was.’

Gheorghiu, whose wife works as a GP, was not present at the hearing or legally represented.

But in a statement to the tribunal, he claimed there was a ‘vendetta’ against him and that the allegations were either untrue or exaggerated.

He denies making inappropriate comments, swearing in front of hospital staff and pushing himself up against colleagues.

The hearing continues.

‘Shocked and vulnerable’